Yes, can you believe it, we are off to Kruger again on the second of our biannual trips. Tomorrow morning bright and early we hope to be on our way up the north coast.

We will be staying at Ngwenya Lodge this time for the 2 weeks but doing daily or almost daily trips into the park.Martial and Tawny are coming with us, so the excitement is mounting! Plus we hope to meet some mites, Yellow ribbons and also have WendyA coming to stay for 1 night on the 31st.

I promise to complete my other trip report from Feb when I get back and then will do this one, last time I had to do that was when I broke my ankle 4 years ago but I guess moving house just after we got back can almost be as stressful so I hope you will all forgive me my tardiness.

But I will post reports from the park either directly in here or by sms to one of my dear friends on the forum.so will keep in touch and anything majorly exciting, you will all be the first to know!

We are here! And its wonderful to be sitting out and hearing a hippo feeding in the bushes just below. We have mainly just settled in and had a walk around after a long day in the car. Tomorrow we plan on going into the park for a while, see what we can find! Thanks for all the great well wishes dear mites. Chat again soon.

Went into the park yesterday for a few hours, so great to be back. Its looking quite dry and many waterholes drying up. Had some fantastic Rhino sightings plus a nice tusker. The most Warthogs I think I have ever seen. Going in for the morning again shortly.

Hi again from Kruger, went in again today but only from 11.30 till gate closing, lots of ellies, and other great sightings, the cats still eluding us so far but we will get them! Weather lovely and warm around 26.. Thanks for all the well wishes. Chat again soon.

Hi everyone! Update from paradise! You are right about the noisy geese Chirinda! No sleeping in here even if we wanted to. Spent a wonderful evening with Wendy last Thursday and she reports some great sightings from Moroela. Had an fantastic day yesterday in the park, got the big 5 including a very special Leopard sighting. Today we spent at Ngwenya and had a big herd of buffs here again plus numerous other animals and birds, then 6 lions came along and looked themselves down on the sand in front of our chalet which had the buffs departing in a hurry! Also hearing lots of Hyena calls. Tomorrow we will go back into the park for the day.

A quieter day in the park today, just so we don't get too complacent! But still most enjoyable with sightings of some nice tuskers, big herds of Zebra, a secretary bird, ostrich and lots more general game. Had a nice lunch at a very busy Mlondozi. Very warm today peaking at 29C.

Its been quite amazing this year Kallis, we have had 4 of the big 5 here so far. I am sure its because the water is drying up in the park and the animals need to come to the river to drink. Lots of Hyena activity, hearing them every night. we are off to meet WendyA at LS today, last drive then home tomorrow.

It was great wasn't it Tawny! and TR's are such a great way of reliving all those magical moments and special sightings.

I can say our final day in the park had a heart stopping moment and a very special sighting but I am going to leave you all in suspense for that and want to first complete my Feb TR before carrying on with this one. Promise not to leave it too long!

Thanks for being so patient and also sorry for allowing the to get cold and go stale!

Anyway having finally finished my Feb/Mar report I can now get on with the latest May/June one.

Tawny, Martial, Klystron & myself embarked on the second of our twice yearly trip and it was with much excitement and a lot of planning for this one seeing as we had barely settled into our new home only having moved in a month previously! but there you have it and we were all up early ready for the trek up the North coast and through Swaziland on Friday the 25th MayFor his trip we were to stay art Ngwenya Lodge and make daily or almost daily trips into the park.

After recovering from the long drive and settling in we decided to take our first shortish drive, full of excitement and anticipation of what we would see and the joy at being back again.

First up a pair of Giraffe which looked like they were having a little conversation!

It is so nice to be able to relive our trips through our reports and pics and get us through to the next one. in my case having to wait until next Feb!

Today we decided to take a drive along the S25 and see what we could find.

I am a shocking note taker and generally what starts out with all good intentions ends up with a few scribbles that I can hardly decipher afterwards, but in the absence of Jock and Tawny's car sickness I guess I'm all I've got!

So I have written or scribbled down H4-2Kudu, Ellies x4, Wildebeest & Imps but I am pretty sure there was a lot more than that!

We took the road down to Hippo Pools but apart from the general game didn't see to much else than what I have already mentioned.Being the weekend Daniel wasn't on duty so no chance to say hello to a real legend of the park.

There is a sign at the junction of the S25 & S108 informing one that you cannot continue through to the H3 via this route due to the damage of the Biyamiti bridge but as we wanted to see it for ourselves we decided to carry on.

Along the way we came across a few Buffalo and one of them had an awful looking tumour or something like that on its face which must have been terribly uncomfortable for the poor thing.

We actually nearly saw a kill from the bridge! a small croc was lying on the one sand bank and slowly slowly another bigger one was approaching from in the water until it got to within striking distance and we had just remarked that it looked as if it might be hunting, when quick as a flash it shot out the water and lunged for the smaller one! Luckily for the smaller one it was a little quicker and make its getaway!

But it just goes to show one can always see something interesting just sitting and watching.

Also very busy on the sandbank in the river was this Black-winged Stilt

A big thanks again to Wendy, hilda, billy, MM, & norms, I do appreciate all your kind comments and interest!

For starters this was one of the days that we decided to stay at the lodge and let the animals and birds come to us, have a wander around and get to stretch the legs a bit after all the sitting in the car of the previous days.Some of those who entertained us were

in fact he of the same name nearly gave me a heart attack the one day!!I was sitting on the veranda, blissfully soaking up the sun and scanning for any animals coming out of the bush when I heard a funny scratching sound on the tiles and on looking down saw that he had actually come up onto the veranda and was making his way towards me and only about a meter away at that point.Well to say I moved fast is most likely the understatement of the century!

plus not to forget one of the many of our feathered friends that came to visit during the day.

Today we decided to get to the gate early and see what the park would show us, so it was and found us sitting outside the closed gates of Croc Bridge at 5.45am, first car in line and we did look very keen!

As we crossed the green bridge we saw that they were busy with repairs, a big job for sure.

I noted that we saw a sleeping Hyena and a male Nyala but both could not have been good photo opportunities!

After a stop off at Tshokwane which at that stage was still not open for business but thankfully the toilets were all once again spic and span with hardly a sign of the devastation of a few months before.

We took the S35 Loop to Orpen Dam which was firmly closed for our Feb/Mar. and now also all fixed up so lots of hard work have been done, thanks to SANParks!

At the end of the Lower Sabie bridge a troop of Baboons were playing around on the rocks and sliding down the bank having a wonderful time but this Mom and baby were a little more subdued and having some quiet time.

I think its time to get going with another little episode of our trip.

This day we were expecting a very special visitor to join us for 1 night at the time share in the form of WendyA! so we decided to just hang around and make it an "animals come to us day" while we waited for her to arrive.

The next day as our first week was up we had to pack up in our one unit and move to our other one downriver so after a busy morning but finally all settled into our new place we relaxed for a while before deciding to take a short little drive into the park in the late afternoon.

I think this might have been at the Gezantfombi DamAn Openbilled Stork and Egyptian Geese